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(08-21-2015, 02:27 PM)Caspar Wrote: The heartfelt example was touching, I suppose, but I'm not convinced. In the end, rather than helping your friend learn the skills necessary to sell their concept, you told them not to do it. If that's your approach, I'll decline from following the same line of reasoning. Sure, good feelings alone can't make you succeed in anything, and people have their limits. What does it say to your friend to tell her she's reached hers? I'll be as blunt as I need to, but if prefer to actually inform and structure writing towards a goal, because that is what I actually can offer help with.
I could be wrong, but I think what he was trying to get at, really, is that some things cannot be informed and structured.
That's part of the reason why some traits, such as being witty, funny, or charming, or other things like that, are so sought after both in real life and in terms of writing; it requires a certain amount of context and situation reading that cannot be immediately or quickly manufactured. It's like the line between Intelligence and what some people call Book Smarts; Intelligence is genetically informed, and cultivated over a lifetime. Book Smarts can be bought with information, memory, and man-hours. That's not to say that one type or the other is inherently better or useless compared to the other, but it is to say that these things are very, very different.
In the instance that you run into something that cannot be manufactured, it's okay to admit that that's something that will never be grasped. As an example, as much as I wanted to be when I was younger, I currently accept that I will never be a physicist, as my mind cannot hold onto necessary information long enough. I can't work harder at that, or manufacture a better memory, because it's a physical disability.
The question I'm sure you're asking at this point is whether that's really comparable to something that isn't physical, such as Being Witty. It isn't in a strictly literal sense, but there's a certain hard cap when it comes to the hours needed to learn something like that, and the amount of time that someone actually has. In other words, much like something physical, it stops becoming something that can be manufactured within a lifetime. This brings us back around to the Tennis example; yes, just about anyone short of the physically disabled can learn how to play tennis. If you sink enough hours into it, you can even be great at it. However, eventually you reach the point where there is just not enough time left to learn something, because you won't live long enough. Some things, such as being witty, really do require half a lifetime or more; if you're already there, and you're not witty, then, as bad as it might sound, there's a very solid chance you won't be. I'm not trying to be harsh or anything, it's just that a lot of things work this way. Sports, art, science, wit, and more.
And that's all without getting into even more technicalities, such as the physical state needed to play sports, the mental attributes needed to be witty, etcetera. Those are real factors as well. That said, however, most people do have the capacity to be witty, and usually choose not to be, due to social limitations, shyness, or other things. What is important, however, is that they have the capability. I doubt that anyone in here is truly incapable of being such, though those people are out there.
EDIT: Wow I messed up that quote attempt, fixed it.